Keyboard Puzzle

Tuesday afternoon, while EM was at karate, I went to the garden center to pick out plants for the window boxes in front of the carport. As I'm loading up the impatiens, I patted myself on the back for leaving LW at home with Michael. It would have been challenging to keep him out of trouble while carrying the plants to the cashier.

Hah. Little did I know.

When I got home, Michael said anxiously, "You like puzzles, right?" And handed me a small glass bowl containing the keys to my laptop. The one that belongs to work. The one that was still on (because it had been working on a large file transfer).

I had carefully locked the computer via Windows XP, because I know LW likes to type on keyboards and I didn't want him, say, deleting files from the network. Or emailing my boss. But it never occurred to me I needed to close the lid.

While the rest of the family ate dinner, and Michael told me about combing through Sammy's fur to find all the pieces, I matched up parts. Each key on the laptop has three parts--a tiny rubber knob, a small plastic frame that snaps around the knob, and the key itself, which snaps onto the plastic frame. The frame holds the key in place, and the rubber knob transmits the pressure from your fingers pressing the key to the sensor that registers the keystroke.

LW was sporadic in destruction--some keys had plastic frame intact but knob missing, some had knob intact but frame missing, and some were missing both. After a good bit of frustration and some tears (but no yelling--I'm very proud of that), I managed to get almost all the keyboard working. The A and D keys stick a bit, but I could probably fix that if I pried them up and snapped them on again. But the E key and the Shift keys are broken. You can make them work by pressing directly on the rubber knobs, but that's not really a long-term solution.

So yesterday morning, I loaded up the laptop and LW and drove 40 minutes to Staples in search of a USB keyboard. We tested it on the spot (hence the need for the laptop).

My boss and the computer tech at work have been very understanding. Since the laptop's warranty expired in March (so close!), the Dell tech won't come to my house. So I am awaiting arrival of a new keyboard, which I will then install into the laptop following directions given me by the tech from work over the phone. I'm good at following directions. Really.

I was not laughing at the time, but now I dearly wish I'd thought to take a picture of the dismantled keyboard.

And Michael and I have decided that LW is now firmly in first place on the family's naughty list, having vaulted over NB's stripping of the dining room wallpaper. (Fixing that was a lot more work, but at least it was something I'd been wanting to do anyway, and it looked great when it was done. This was completely unnecessary--and involved confessing to people at work.)